


One More Tune Before I Die

by Arukou



Series: Tumblr Archive [22]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dark, Ending could be interpreted as character death, Final Round, Gen, Ghosts, Past Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tumblr: 890fifth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 08:17:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5578186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arukou/pseuds/Arukou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the rocky shore, Tony hears and sees, but he still can't quite believe that his new beach house is haunted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One More Tune Before I Die

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/post/125971653008/part-1-of-2-pairing-steve-tony-warnings) and [here](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/post/125971671700/part-2-of-2-part-1-can-be-found-here-pairing).

The real estate agent looked on nervously while Tony inspected the property, his critical gaze passing over the weather-beaten wood and the creaking floors. “It’s hardly the Ritz,” he said finally, running a curious finger over the banister. The wood was cool to the touch and his skin came away covered in powdery dust.

“But it does fit all your requests, Mr. Stark, and it’s also the only property I’ve found that does so.”

Tony blinked his tired eyes, and shook his head; some days it felt as though he’d never managed to wash the sand of distant deserts from them at all. He hastily wiped across his face and glanced back at the agent again. “What was the asking price?”

“$500,000, sir. The owner is aware that it’s…it’s a bit run down.”

That hardly seemed right, especially as Tony found a floorboard that lifted away almost completely. The real estate agent blanched and hastily lifted her folder. “I’m sure Ms. Carter could be convinced to allow the property to go for less. It’s been on the market for some time.”

“Tell her I’ll give her 350 and not a penny more,” Tony said and turned to look through the crust of salt on the window. Beyond, the gray sky sat heavy and foreboding on a steel sea, the chop high and unforgiving on the black cliffs surrounding the property. “But I do want it.”

“I’ll…I’ll see what I can do, sir.”

* * *

Tony hired contractors to fix the place up in record time, and a month after the final sale, he promptly moved in. “Are you sure?” Jim asked, looking up at the silvered clapboard and the empty, yawning windows. “It’s not exactly what you’re used to.”

“That’s the point, Jim. I need to get away from all that. I need…” he fingered the scarring on his chest, blinked grit from his eyes and turned again toward the ocean, “I need a change.”

“If you’re absolutely sure,” Jim said, though he still phrased it like a question. He walked Tony to the front door, where the main contractor was waiting for him to inspect the final charge.

“Sir,” he said as Tony signed off on the bill, “I just wanted to let you know. The men, they said the house will make strange noises at night. Pay it no mind. Just an old house.” As he spoke, though, his face was white and his hands trembled slightly.

Tony frowned at him and he shrank away, cringing. “If I find you did shoddy work and left me with an unsafe house, there’ll be hell to pay from my lawyers.”

“Of course, sir,” the contractor said, already retreating. “You won’t be disappointed. The house is sound. You have my word.”

Jim was watching him with just as much suspicion, even as the black car pulled away and disappeared down the winding road beyond the cliffs. “Well,” said Jim finally, looking back at the house, “let’s get you settled.”

In truth, there wasn’t much for them to do. The movers had done it all, and Tony didn’t have much in the way of personal affects. He’d left that behind in New York, where Virginia could watch over it all and cluck her tongue in alternating disapproval and worry. The only luxury he’d allowed himself was a handsome set of tools, sequestered in a room he supposed had once been a nursery, what with the cheery wallpaper prints that had been there when he’d bought the property. He’d had that stripped away and in its place was plain cream; no distractions for his inventing when the mood struck him.

Jim helped him arrange the workshop and then forced a meal of cold chicken and potatoes on him, but by nightfall there was nothing left to do.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to stay a few days? Just until you’ve gotten used to the place.”

“No, Jim. I’m fine. I just need…I need time away. Time to process and heal. Away from the city and the company. It’ll be good for me.”

Jim didn’t look convinced, but after a moment he nodded and retreated to his car, giving Tony one final wave goodbye before he disappeared into the night, the golden light from his headlights swallowed by the darkness. Tony stared out a long time before glancing upward. The heavy cloud cover remained and it was a black so absolute that he felt he’d never seen anything like it before. The waves crashed distantly against the cliffs and he listened to them for a long moment, their thrum as steady as the feeble beat of his heart.

The first night in his new house, the silence was almost overwhelming. He lay in bed for all of thirty minutes before he couldn’t take it anymore, flinging away the covers and slipping through the dark, clammy hallways. In the unfamiliar environment, he slipped and banged himself against unseen corners, swearing and grumbling as he stumbled down the dangerously steep stairs toward his workshop.

He’d already ordered a beautiful set of oak pieces and a plethora of metal parts to work with; it was almost child’s play to begin constructing a gliding machine, a sturdy frame and stalwart metal struts. He became so absorbed in his work that at first he didn’t hear it, but at a pause to wipe the sweat from his brow, it washed over him, soft and plaintive and haunting. _“’Bring me my harp,’ was David’s sad sigh, ‘I would play one more tune before I die.’”_ Tony blinked and set aside his hammer, tilting his head. The words were muffled and indistinct, and he would think that the singer was only humming if it weren’t for how it carried over a distance, slow and bittersweet as wine on his tongue.

After a moment, Tony shifted to the window, but found it closed. He blinked into the inky night, the bright light of his workshop blinding him to the world outside. After a time, the song faded away and Tony was left feeling even more alone than he had watching Jim slip into the night.

In the morning, he went out to the cliffs, to try and find the walking path he suspected his singer had been using, but there was nothing there. The rock was bare and treacherously slippery with sea spray. Tony looked down at the shining black stone and turned away. Briefly, the sun shone through a split in the clouds, but rather than give the scenery life, it somehow made his old weather-beaten house look even bleaker. The sunlight faded away and the landscape was again dyed in monochrome, like something he’d seen once in a picture book. He stared at his lonely house on its lonely rock for a long moment and then made his way back. His gliding machine needed work.

* * *

For weeks, Tony had difficulty sleeping. He’d lay in his bed, tossing and turning, dry and course as the desert sand eating at his mind, until he was forced to rise and work. Somehow his glider had become something else, though he couldn’t say what. The wood and metal shaped themselves under his hands with nary a care for what the maker desired. And inevitably, he’d hear his singing neighbor again, haunting Irish tune after haunting Irish tune carrying through the night, caressing the back of Tony’s neck until his shivers were uncontrollable.

At last, he determined to meet the singer and make friends, or at the very least ask for happier music. The next night of insomnia, he ignored the siren call of his workshop and slipped out into the night. Though there was cloud cover, it was thin as gossamer, and the moon shone down through its shroud with just enough brightness to guide his feet. He headed toward the cliffs, though kept well away from the edges, and sat on a boulder in to wait. The itch settled almost immediately across his shoulders, a sense of being watched, of being not alone in the chill of the night.

Fifteen, perhaps twenty minutes passed, and then the song came to him, but somehow, it was just as muffled and distant as it sounded in his workshop. He turned, trying to locate the source, the singer, but the song was on all sides of him, matching the steady slow beat of the sea. At last, Tony found himself facing his house, and he blinked once and then again when he realized one of the lights on the third floor was on. His bedroom was on the second floor and he hadn’t found cause to venture to the third after his initial inspection, so how…?

At that moment, a shadow passed in front of the light, and Tony’s shivers turned to cold dread. A burglar! He took off towards home, moving as quickly as he dared in the dim moonlight, and tore into the house and up the stairs, barely even pausing to arm himself with a hatchet from the woodpile. By the time he reached the third floor landing, his chest was heaving and his breath was whistling in his throat, his weakened heart pounding faster than was safe. If he was indeed being burgled, he was likely also about to be killed, because he wouldn’t be able to stop them if they attacked.

Somehow, the song was still permeating the air around him, just as distant and muffled, but it was a barely afterthought in the face of his panic. He waited on the landing, convinced that he was about to meet his maker, but his visitor never emerged from the corner room.

When at last he’d caught his breath and quieted his aching heart, he stood straighter and hefted the ax, making his way toward the door. He could see a soft light from under the crack, and a shadow passed near and then far.

Tony steeled himself, silently put a hand to the door, and eased the knob, pushing with all his might at the last second to fling it open. For a brief moment, Tony could see a man, slight of frame, sandy blonde hair dripping, his oversized clothes clinging wetly to his body, haloed by an oil lamp. And then Tony saw nothing and no one because the light disappeared and the room was thrust into darkness.

Around him the song swelled and then faded to nothing, and Tony shivered when the draft howled strong through the hall windows, an icy caress against his ears and neck. “Hello?” he called, raising the ax threateningly, but there was no answer, not even a set of footsteps. He remained frozen in the doorway for minutes, waiting for the man to make his move, but nothing happened, and at last Tony reached for the light switch, only to discover that it was not working.

Confused and frightened, he stumbled back to his room and barricaded the door, sitting in his bed with the ax at his side, the lights all burning bright. He didn’t sleep a wink.

In the morning, he made his way back up to the room where he found the man, but there was nothing there, not even an oil lamp. He thought he’d had all the detritus from the previous occupant removed, but in the daylight, he found that this room was covered with a layer of dingy white canvas. A cursory glance at the floor showed only Tony’s footprints disturbed the layer of dust on the floor and he stared helplessly downward, trying to understand what he’d seen.

After long minutes of consideration, Tony was forced to conclude that his lack of sleep had driven him to hallucinations. There was never a man, maybe never even a string of Irish ballads in the night; perhaps his overwrought brain has conjured the whole thing as some desperate coping mechanism for his nightmares.

Now, though, curiosity peaked his interest, and he approached the canvas, shockingly whole in spite of its years of neglect. Very carefully he peeled back the first layer and found a stack of paintings beneath, strange fields of abstract blue and white and black that made his head spin to look at.

Another stack was more straightforward, a sight he was familiar with even. The Brooklyn bridge stretched heavy and dark across a sunset orange sky, it’s shape sketched in heavy, jagged lines of black. In spite of its harshness, though, there was something about its rough edges that made Tony feel for a moment like he’d come home.

The third stack was obviously the work of a learner, tired still lifes and fabric studies that spoke of boredom in every brush stroke; Tony didn’t think the artist had liked this work very much. He flipped through them and nearly smiled, recognizing a kindred spirit, a person who knew what it was to be miles ahead of their peers but forced to wait just to be listened to.

The last and largest stack was a set of portraits, and staring into the eyes of the first one, Tony felt suddenly as though he’d intruded on something very private, like a voyeur watching lovers in an illicit embrace. From the first canvas, a woman stared out at him, her features rendered in delicate lines, thin as spider silk. She was gaunt and pale as the driftwood on a beach, her eyes huge and luminescent and tired, but there was also something strong about her, nearly unbreakable in the set of her shoulders and spine. Tony hastily flipped to the next portrait, afraid of what the first might think of his weak heart.

Below, a man waited, looking over his shoulder at the viewer. He was just as pale as the first woman, though his hair was shining mahogany, lustrous with health and youth. His wide, icy eyes were haunted, and after a moment, Tony realized that he wore a uniform; a soldier then, forever trapped in the horror of the battlefield, even though he was thousands of miles from its violent front. Now that Tony was looking, he could see war in the young man’s eyes.

The third portrait was of another woman, rendered in thick hard lines, her features nearly indistinct in their blockiness. And yet Tony could see the steel of her, her severe, no-nonsense coiffure and the unyielding line of her mouth, the iron and black powder in her eyes, ready to explode on the world. She was terrifying and breathtaking and distant all at once, though on the hand raised to her shoulder, Tony could see the wink of a wedding ring, the one hint of softness in the entire portrait.

The final canvas was a steely blur of blue and gray, almost unfinished in quality. Tony stared into its depths, trying to make sense of what he was looking at. After a moment, he backed up a few steps and the shape coalesced for him, sending a sliver of ice into his heart. From the maelstrom of blue, a man stared up at him, his features thin like the first woman, the sandy blonde of his hair nearly lost amongst the gray. His eyes were clear though, clear and determined, as though they were turned to some distant star, some unattainable dream. He was the man from the previous night, and Tony shuddered as he looked at those thin shoulders, that slim jaw.

With trembling fingers, he reached for the portrait and lifted it from its place, searching until he found the artist’s signature. In small, neat cursive, S.G. Rogers looped in the bottom right-hand corner, along with the numbers 1922. Tony nearly reached out to touch the name, but at the last he pulled back, something dark warning him away.

Hastily, Tony covered the portraits again and retreated to his bedroom. He sat at his writing desk, staring out at the sea, nearly so blue that it was black today. In the distance, lightning forked the sky and several beats later, the gentle roll of thunder filled the air. At last, he drew a sheet of paper from his stationery drawer and began writing.

* * *

“Ms. Carter, thank you so much for seeing me.”

“Nonsense, it’s no trouble,” she said, waving her fine-boned hand. If he had to guess, he’d say she might be in her late fifties, but she had a kind of timeless quality in her features, old eyes and young skin. She could be anywhere between thirty and eighty and he wouldn’t have known the difference. “It’s the least I can do, since you came all this way just to see me.”

He nodded and accepted the cup of tea she offered him, listening to the fine china clink against the saucer and his tea spoon. She studied him with fierce eyes and with a growing sense of horror, he realized he knew her features. For a moment, he couldn’t find his tongue, and she took advantage of his silence. “Mrs. Stewart said you wanted to ask me about the beach house. I confess I’d not been in a great many years, but I’ll tell you what I can.”

Unsure how much he should divulge, Tony blinked into his cup before responding. “How did you decide to buy it? And why did you leave it empty so long?”

Ms. Carter sat back in her chair, stirring sugar into her tea with a lazy, absent motion. She turned to study the bright blue of the sky outside before looking back at him.

“I purchased it for my husband,” she said at last, eyes falling to the swirling waters of her tea. “He was born in New York, but he was very sickly and a doctor recommended that removing ourselves to somewhere with fresh air would help him immensely. I had a fair inheritance from my father, so we used it to purchase the property.”

“Did it help him? Your husband?”

When she looked at him, Ms. Carter’s eyes were a confused swirl of emotion, and Tony couldn’t quite read it all. “The fresh air did him good, I think, but the chill from the ocean was so hard on him. We should have aimed for someplace warmer and drier. But he didn’t want to be too far from New York. He grew up there and his best friend still lived there. That was before the Great War, you see, and we thought…well. I suppose it doesn’t matter what we thought.”

Tony listened, enraptured by the distance in her voice, a kind of ache that seemed to reach across years, something strangely kindred to his own wounded heart.

“What happened?”

“A great many things,” she answered shortly, before her face softened. “I’m sorry. It was a long time ago, but sometimes it still feels like…” Her hand fluttered at her shoulder, trying to express what words could not. “The first thing that happened was the war. We’d just married, just purchased the house, and America announced she was entering. Steve, he…he wanted so badly to serve his country, but his health simply wouldn’t allow it. And then James…”

Ms. Carter was looking out the window again, and Tony had the sudden sense that he’d been forgotten entirely. “James was Steve’s best friend. Thick as thieves, they were. And James went off to fight in the war. He went off to die in the war.”

She gave Tony a small glance, something bitter in her smile. “Steve was devastated. I’d never seen him so…I asked him to give me a child. I thought if we had a baby, maybe that could fill a little of the space James had left behind. And Steve had always talked of children. He’d wanted a whole pack of them, so that they could take care of each other in a way he’d never had. So we tried…but before I conceived there was an accident.”

Tony felt his heart sink, his gut plummet. “What happened to him?”

Ms. Carter looked at him sharply, then, her fingers tightening around her cup. “How do you know something happened to him?”

“I…I, uh…”

Tony couldn’t think of what to say, how to explain that he thought he might’ve met Steve already, some lost shade in the night. Ms. Carter took pity on him, though, and continued. “He fell ill. At first I wasn’t terribly worried. We had medicine, the best I could manage for him, and I’d been with him through pneumonia so many times. But this time was different. His fever did strange things to him, made him see things. Sometimes he spoke with his mother, sometimes with James. Sometimes he thought he was at war, fighting Krauts. I…I remember going to check on him and finding his bed empty. He’d wandered off in a fever dream into the night. I could…I could hear him singing, out on the cliffs, songs his mother had taught him. And then there was the splash…”

Ms. Carter broke off, her hand at her throat, her eyes huge and horrified. She took a shuddering breath, and then another one, until at last she was steady and unwavering as steel again. “His body washed up the next day. I tried to stay in the house for a while after that, but it was just so empty. I moved back to New York and joined the war effort, and somehow never could bring myself to go back. But for a long time I couldn’t sell it either. It seemed like betraying him, somehow, to just give it up.”

The tea had long gone cold, but Tony took a sip of it anyway, weighing his words. “He painted you, didn’t he,” he said at last, looking up and catching her diamond-hard eyes.

Her mouth opened a little, but she caught herself and shut it again. “How did you know that?”

“I found the paintings on the third floor. Several of them. They’re very…he was talented.”

“He was,” Ms. Carter whispered, her eyes sharp and worried. “You’ve seen him, haven’t you?” Caught off guard, Tony choked on his tea before setting the cup back in its saucer.  “My friends always told me it was a the grief,” Ms. Carter continued, unconcerned with his lack of decorum, “but I knew better. I knew Steve. I thought if I left, maybe he’d learn to move on, but I suppose that was foolish of me. He was always so stubborn.”

Tony didn’t know what to say to that, so he drained his tea, only to find her still watching him with her hawkish eyes. “I know I’m asking a great deal, Mr. Stark, but if you could find it in your heart to help him in any way you can. Steve was never very good at being alone.  He was always meant for more than that, and I’ve always felt I was a coward for abandoning him to that house.”

At that, Tony did know what to say. After all, he had some experience with being a ghost back from the dead. For a moment, Virginia’s milk white face flashed through his mind, the ring winking on her finger, telling him that she’d moved on while he’d been missing. “You didn’t abandon him, Ms. Carter. He would have wanted you to move on, to live your life.”

She didn’t look terribly convinced, and he supposed his words rang only as a platitude, but after a moment, she nodded and reached out, catching his hand and squeezing. “I don’t suppose…No, they should stay with the house. They were his after all.”

“The paintings?”

“Yes. It would be wrong to take them from him.”

* * *

 

That night when he returned to the house, he was distracted, thinking of the thin, dripping man. Steve, Ms. Carter had called him. Tony was first and foremost a man of science, and he had never believed in ghosts or spirits, and yet he also could not deny what he saw. The only way to solve the mystery was experimentation.

When night fell, he attempted to sleep, but as always, he jolted himself awake, the desert sun blinding in his eyes and blood on his tongue. He ripped the covers away and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Outside, a steady drizzle was tapping on the windows, and the wind made the house creak and groan. Tony stared into the gloom of the world beyond his door and formulated a plan.

As per usual, he made his way down to his workshop, rolling up his sleeves and donning his wood-working apron. But instead of closing the door and drifting away into the world of design and engineering, he kept half of his mind focused on the house, on the gaping blackness beyond the threshold, and waited for Steve.

Thirty minutes later, long enough that Tony nearly forgot his plan, absorbed again in his mystery project, Steve began singing “Silent, Oh Moyle”, the slow hum of it filling the house. Tony set aside his wood planer and stood up straight. He’d thought hard about how best to make contact, and had several ideas to test. His first was simply to ask.

“Steve?” he called, his voice echoing into the dark of the night. Nothing. The singing continued, simultaneously distant and close. After a moment, though, Tony noticed that the workshop grew chill, gooseflesh rising on his arms. He tried again, fighting to keep his voice steady. “Steve?”

Above him, his workshop light flickered and then died, thrusting Tony into the absolute darkness of the rainy night.  “Who’s there?” someone said; Tony would be hard pressed to describe the voice. It was like hearing someone speak through water, but it was also breezy, nearly indistinct.

“Steve?” he tried a third time, and in the hallway, an oil lamp flickered to life, clutched in a single pale hand. Tony couldn’t see Steve’s features, and the hand seemed to hang disembodied in the blackness, the light it bore pallid and weak.

“Who are you?” Steve said again, and Tony took a step forward. He hadn’t really thought this would work, and beyond attracting Steve’s attention, he really had no plan to speak of. His mind raced with possibilities as he took another step, but the lamp wavered then, and Tony froze, holding his hands up.

“Ms. Carter sent me,” he said after a moment, trying to muster a placating tone.

“Peggy?” Steve asked, and somehow his voice was clearer. If Tony blinked, he thought he could just see the features of Steve’s face, faint though they were. “I’ve got to find her. Peggy?” he called, and then the oil lamp was retreating, its ghostly light fading deeper into the hallway.

“Wait! Steve! She’s not here,” Tony hurried out, chasing after the lamp, but it was already gone. For a moment, the breath of a song washed over him, low and plaintive and distant as the sea, and then it was gone. The light in his shop flickered back to life, and he stood in its glow, staring out at the empty black night. Though he was wide awake, he didn’t touch his creation the rest of the night; instead, he sat and waited to see if Steve would reappear, but when dawn showed its first pale fingers, Tony was still alone.

* * *

The next night, Tony tried a different approach. He armed himself with dozens of emergency candles and went up to the room with the paintings, lighting them and watching as the sky dimmed from gray to black. In the flickering candlelight, his eyes played tricks on him. Shadows darted in front of his vision, and for one horrifying moment, he thought he saw Obadiah rising up from the blackness to strike at him. Tony shouted aloud and in the next moment, Steve was there, his lamp held high and his hair dripping down his face.

“Who are you?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

Still shivering in the grip of his terror, Tony could not answer, could not get his tongue to move and form words. Steve’s face wavered and changed before him, seeming to grow more substantial, harder somehow. “Let me help,” he said, and Tony remembered what Ms. Carter had said, that Steve had wanted to help others more than anything.

“I don’t think you can help,” he said honestly, fighting back full blown panic when Steve knelt close and the temperature dropped. In front of his lips, Tony’s breath fogged and bellowed, eddying around Steve as a river around a stone.

“Let me help,” Steve said again, and he reached out, but his hand passed through Tony’s shoulder. He frowned, confused, and leaned back a little. “Why can’t I…” Only then did he seem to realize he was dripping wet. He touched one spike of hair plastered to his forehead, the drop slipping down his finger. “Oh,” he said again, voice slow and thick.

Tony took a shaking breath and leaned forward a little, even as his instincts screamed for him to get back. “You’ve been gone a long time, Steve.”

“I…” Steve looked up, and he looked so young and confused. Tony hadn’t thought to ask Ms. Carter how old Steve had been when he died, but he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. He fell back into the darkness, looking around himself, seeing the paintings draped in canvas. The oil lamp slipped from his hand and disappeared altogether, so that the only light in the room came from Steve’s ghostly form. “I’m dead, aren’t I?” he whispered, looking at Tony with desperate eyes.

“Yes,” Tony said softly. “You went out with a fever and slipped and drowned.”

Steve took a shaky breath and studied his hands again, as though he was seeing them for the first time. In a way, Tony supposed, he was. “Peggy,” he said finally, looking up at Tony.

“She’s…” Tony hesitated for a moment before saying, “she moved on. Left here and joined the war effort. She wanted me to help you.”

“Who are you?” Steve asked again, his eyes wide and hollow.

“Tony Stark. I bought the house from Ms. Carter a few months ago. But then I heard you singing and saw you, so…”

Steve frowned at that and studied Tony. “Why were you so…was it me? Was it me that frightened you?”

“Ah, no. No, I…that was something else. Nothing to do with you. I, uh…it was nothing.” Tony sat up a little straighter and tilted his head, considering Steve. “Ms. Carter asked me to help you, but I confess now that I’ve met you, I’m not quite sure how to help. You’ve realized your…your predicament and I almost thought that would be enough to set you free, but it seems not. What do you need?”

Steve looked at Tony a moment and then stood slowly, phantom drops of water slipping off him to dissipate in the chill air. “I’m not sure,” he said slowly, but then held out a hand in invitation. “Walk with me?”

Tony stood and began to follow Steve, jumping a little when he picked up an Irish ballad again, “The Wife of Usher’s Well.” This close to him, the melody swelled, but it was still strangely distant in his ears, as though Steve were singing from the first floor of the house and it was only just reaching Tony. He turned to mention it to Steve, but the ghost had already disappeared from sight.

“Steve?” he asked, looking around the landing, but there was no answer. “Steve?” he called more loudly, but the music was already fading into the night. Tony stayed up all night hoping Steve would reappear, but he never did.

* * *

The next night, Tony was so tired that he fell asleep in his armchair by the fire well before sundown. He didn’t mean to sleep, but the human body had limits and he’d reached his months ago. When next he woke, sweat dripping from his temples and a scream in his throat, Steve was in front of him, bearing up his oil lamp, brow creased in a frown.

“Who are you?” he asked, extending a hand palm out. “Let me help.”

“You don’t…you don’t remember?”

Steve’s frown deepened and his shoulders sagged, and Tony felt a pang of sympathy; it was probably indelicate to say that Steve looked like a drowned puppy, but no other image came to Tony’s mind. At last Steve said, “I’m sorry. Have we met? I’m afraid I’m…not myself.”

Tony considered his words carefully, his hand held over his still pounding heart. “Ms. Carter asked me to come check on you,” he said finally, watching as the air in front of his mouth bloomed cloud after cloud of fog. The fire had died down and only its embers remained, sullen and blood red in the dark room.

“Peggy,” Steve said slowly, his eyes drifting. “I didn’t mean to worry her. But there’s something I have to do.”

“What is that something?” Tony pressed, leaning forward, eyes bright with a feverish eagerness. In his logical mind, he knew that helping Steve would do very little to help himself, but exhaustion made him draw faulty parallels. If Steve could be helped, Tony’s own sleepless nights would ease; he would manage to banish the desert sun from his mind, the flash of Obadiah’s knife, the burn of an explosive across his skin.

“I have to…Bucky. He’s…he’s gone off. He needs help.” Steve’s gaze turned toward the sea then, and he began walking, almost as if he’d forgotten Tony altogether. Perhaps he had.

Tony scrambled to his feet to follow, stumbling along in the darkness after Steve’s narrow, ghostly form. He could hear rain lashing against the windows, the wind howling in the night, and didn’t relish following Steve into the storm, but he had to know.

Steve passed through the door in the kitchen and Tony trailed behind him, losing grip on the door as the wind wrenched it wide open. In the stinging, fat rain, Tony could barely make out Steve’s lamp, a bobbing will-o’-the-wisp in the inky night. Unbidden, old wives’ tales came to him of people led to their deaths by such spirits, but Tony couldn’t bring himself to believe it. Steve was a kind spirit, simply lost and alone.

Tony nearly missed the moment it happened, though, so blinded was he by freezing water. Steve’s lamp abruptly stopped and then plummeted over the edge of the cliff; Tony felt perversely grateful to know how far he could walk, but at the same time, his heart clenched in his chest. Is this what Steve had been doing every night? Reliving his death over and over? Tony stopped well away from the cliff, staring into the driving rain.

He nearly had a heart attack when he turned and found Steve behind him, lamp held aloft, face gaunt and dripping. “Who are you?” he demanded, voice distant and muffled. “It’s not safe. Let me help.”

He reached for Tony and somehow it was different from before. Tony could feel the ice of his fingers, cold and hard with rigor mortis, digging into the flesh of his collarbone. Something twisted in Steve’s face and his fingers gripped even more tightly. “It’s not safe!” he said, nearly shouting, and a wave of fright washed over Tony unbidden. Without even being aware of it, he was on his feet and running toward the house, slipping and crashing against the unforgiving rocks. He didn’t stop until he was safely inside, the door bolted behind him, and then he collapsed against the weather-beaten wood, shaking and dripping all over the hardwood floors. It was nearly an hour before he could bring himself to rise and dry off, and when he did, he found purpling bruises along his shoulder, a perfect match for Steve’s fingers.

* * *

Shaking and sleepless yet again, Tony stared into the fire of the drawing room. He thought perhaps he understood now, what Steve’s spirit needed, but he wanted to be sure. His workshop sat untouched, the lights dimmed and the tools quiescent. He could feel the itch to build, but the itch to solve the mystery of Steve Rogers was stronger still.

The night wore on, the fire burned lower, and between one blink and the next, the song started up. “ _Oh please ne'er forget me. Though waves now lie o'er me, I was once young and pretty and my spirit ran free._ ” Tony shivered as Steve’s voice waxed and waned, a steady thrum, like a heartbeat. He stared into the fire, waiting, and after a moment, the lamp passed in front of him, slowing and finally halting. In the dancing flames, Steve’s form was barely visible, but he stared at Tony nonetheless. “Who are you?” he asked slowly, lifting his lamp high and then lowering it again.

“Ms. Carter sent me to help you. She said you wanted to find James.”

Steve blinked slowly, shaking his head as though it were full of cotton. “Bucky, he…the war. He’s in the war. And not just him. Riley Fincher, the butcher’s boy. Gary Harlaw. Slick Svenson. They’ve all gone. They need my help. I want to help them.”

For just a moment, Tony imagined it: watching as his friends were swallowed by the war front, one by one, and being left alone to mourn their passing. “I know,” Tony said slowly, raising an imploring hand. “And Ms. Carter knows, too. She knows how much you want to help. But in order to help, you need to get to Europe first, don’t you?”

Steve nodded slowly, looking down at his skeletal hands, the bones and veins creating deep shadows in his pale skin. “They wouldn’t take me,” he said, and Tony felt a breath of wind, cold with rage, whisper across his skin.

“I know,” he said. “But I will. I’ll take you.”

Steve looked at him suspiciously, eyes narrow. The wind was picking up now, making the low flames flicker and nearly die in the fire. “Why aren’t you over there with them?”

Tony gave a weak smile and tapped his chest, cringing at the phantom of pain. “Bad heart,” he said. “They wouldn’t take me either. But we can make it together.”

At that, the wind died down a little, and Steve’s face softened. “You were screaming,” he murmured, his face distant. “You were…hurt?”

Tony blinked back shock that Steve had remembered, but slowly he nodded. “I haven’t exactly been right since,” he confessed, still rubbing at his ribs, flinching when the shadows flickered, the rise and fall of a blade in his mind’s eye.

Steve chuckled at that, a low, self-deprecating thing. “I’ve never exactly been right, to hear Bucky tell it. He says only crazy men want to go to war.” His expression grew somber, then. “But I must be crazy. Because I want to help them. They need me.”

His conviction was terrifying, the iron clad strength and surety in his words made Tony’s chest squeeze. Slowly, he rose, and gestured to his work room. “I’ll show you,” he said, tongue thick and uncooperative, “how we’ll get there.”

* * *

It took Tony another fortnight to finish his masterpiece, shaping the wood and metal, smoothing it and finishing it, working the joints until they gleamed, seamless and flawless. Steve watched his frenzy, his singing a constant and pressing companion. Tony barely slept, barely ate, looked in the mirror and saw that his skin stretched tight over his bones, like a skeleton had climbed into a rubber sheet and found it slightly too small. But that was alright. The work was almost finished, and when he finished it, he could rest.

At last he was satisfied, and he threw open the door of the workshop, only to realize his creation would not fit. That wouldn’t do. A sledgehammer and a crowbar became his keys and he ripped the doorframe apart, widened the opening, until an elephant could have passed. Then he did the same for the rear kitchen entrance. Just as night was falling, he finally returned to his workroom and began hauling the hulking framework forward.

His weakened, spindly arms could barely make a dent, his creation scraping forward only a bare inch at a time. He panted and wheezed, his heart aching in his chest, and in the darkness of the hallway, Steve appeared beside him.

“Let me help,” Steve insisted, water dripping from his hair. He put his razor thin hands to the edge and pushed, and as he did so, cold rushed over Tony’s body, arresting his muscles and breath. The wooden framework slid forward several feet, nearly to the door frame. Tony collapsed where he stood, and felt Steve’s phantom hands on his shoulders. “We’re nearly there,” Steve said, that same terrifying conviction in his voice. “Just a little further.” His fingers tightened on Tony’s bones and somehow, he found the strength to stand, to continue.

It was raining outside, always raining, it seemed, but the wet ground eased the friction and it suddenly became much easier to haul his creation, his boat, down toward the water. Or perhaps it was simply Steve, who slipped along beside him, singing and smiling, his teeth bared.

Tony had to veer around the cliffs to the rocky outlet where the tide came in. His heart labored in his chest, each beat as loud and hard as the beat of drum. The waves lapped at the hull of the boat, and then it was in the water, floating and sitting beautifully, the oak strong and dark and unyielding.

Steve slipped in, settled on the bench and turned to Tony. “We can help them,” he said, and stretched out an imploring hand. Dizzy and feverish, Tony stumbled forward without really thinking about it. Ms. Carter had asked him to help, after all, and now he could.

Without really realizing it, Tony found himself in the prow, an oar in each hand. Steve grinned at him, shining and compelling and hard. “Come on, Tony,” he urged, “let’s go. We’ll save them together.”

Tony began to row, his strokes falling in time with his laboring heart. Steve picked up the rhythm, the rain pounding around them, and opened his mouth, his song clear for the first time. _“_ _O'er_ _Coolin’s face the night is creeping,_ _The banshee’s wail is round us sweeping;_ _Blue eyes in Duin are dim with weeping,_ _Since thou art gone and ne'er returnest._ _No more, no more, no more returning;_ _In peace nor in war is he returning;_ _Till dawns the great day of doom and burning,_ _MacCrimmon is home no more returning._ _”_

Tony shivered, the lyrics freezing the breath in his lungs, but still he rowed on, even as the song continued, the beat relentless, demanding. The black Atlantic stretched before them, the rain drenched them, and Tony rowed.

* * *

“You’re sure you haven’t seen him since, Mrs. Winston?”

“I came by to drop off his grocery order, same as always, but he wasn’t home and the food was spoiled in the ice box. And there was that great gaping hole in the kitchen. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.”

Jim and Virginia traded a look and then Jim nodded at her. “Thank you for contacting us. We’ll…we’ll look into it.”

Mrs. Winston crossed herself and quickly escaped the house, casting fearful looks behind her.

Virginia stared at the torn boards of the house, her hand at her throat. “Surely he wouldn’t have…” she began, eyes tracing out to sea.

Jim shook his head sharply. “He’s…Tony is a lot of things, but I don’t think he’d give up. I don’t think he’d…do that. No matter how bad he was feeling. No. Maybe he just… maybe it was too much for him. The company. Obadiah. Maybe he just…went to start somewhere new. Somewhere his past wouldn’t follow him.”

Pepper gave Jim a sharp glance.  “Do you really believe that?”

Jim didn’t answer. They gave the house a going over, but everything seemed relatively untouched, save the damage the wind and rain and seagulls had done through the hole in the kitchen. In the attic, though, Virginia discovered the paintings, and stared at them a long while, running reverent fingers over the edges of the frames. “Look at these, Jim,” she said when he found her.

He came forward and studied the portraits as she flipped through, until she came to one at the back.

“When do you think he had this made?” he asked her, studying Tony’s wide eyes as they stared up at him from the portrait. There was something about him, something Jim hadn’t seen since the disastrous journey to the Middle East. He looked…settled, somehow.

“I don’t know,” she said, carefully lifting the portrait from the stack. She studied it for a moment and then found the artist’s signature. “But…that can’t be right,” she murmured, nearly touching the year. _S.G. Rogers, 1923_.

Jim shivered and put a hand to Virginia’s shoulder. “Honest mistake,” he said shortly, and gently pressed at her arm until she replaced the portrait. “Let’s go. I think we’ve seen everything there is to see.”

She nodded and followed him down the stairs and out the house. As they climbed into the car, she shivered and turned.

“What is it?” Jim asked, his sharp eyes scanning the sky, burnt orange with sunset.

“I thought I heard someone singing,” she answered, shivering again.

Jim listened for a moment and then shrugged. “I don’t hear anything,” he said, opening the door for her. “Let’s go.”

Virginia scanned the horizon one last time and then clambered into the car, watching the house shrink in the rear-view mirror until it disappeared entirely.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com) for more fanfiction and nerdery. I promise I don't always write dark things.


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